


Can You Walk On Water

by risibleWorld



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies), The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: But they try, Civil War Team Iron Man, Hurt Tony Stark, I Will Go Down With This Ship, Not A Fix-It, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Post-Captain America: Civil War (Movie), Protective James "Rhodey" Rhodes, Protective Vision (Marvel), Psychological Torture, Steve Rogers needs a good beating, Tony Needs a Hug, Tony Stark Needs a Hug, Torture, bashing for both teams, but I still love Steve, but the thing about war is that both sides believe to be the good ones, civil war broke my heart, past implied love, there are no heroes in this world
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-11-12
Updated: 2018-02-22
Packaged: 2019-01-16 16:33:18
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 2
Words: 2,154
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12346461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/risibleWorld/pseuds/risibleWorld
Summary: After what the media will call the Avenger's civil war Tony is left alone in Siberia. His suit is dead, but his hurt ego and broken heart are off even worse.(If you came here to tell me that you disagree with me regarding Steve, please see comment section before sharing your worldview with me.*)((*not that I oppose to hearing some other opinions. But if you're here to pick a fight look elsewhere. Damns** and fights are sold out right now. Sorry.))





	1. Prelude

**Author's Note:**

> Civil war just broke me. The complexity of the conflict, the way they orchestred it--so beautiful!  
> But I have to work through emotions and ideas here...
> 
>  
> 
> (((**this is my way of telling you that I don't give a effing damn.)))

RAGING

standing in the cold in the frozen wind

I’m leaving you behind but it’s not the end

no no no

 

walking on a plain as I hold my breath

it’s gonna be weeks till I breath again

no no no

 

I know that you hate it

and I hate it

just as much as you

 

but if you can brave it

I can brave it

brave it all for you

 

call me anytime that you see the lightning

don’t you feel alone, you can always find me

we’ve got a wild love

raging raging

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZhzN7-Q00KU

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter: Chapter I  
> A chapter about the relentless cold of Siberia and unwanted "saviors"


	2. I.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Here comes chapter one. We are just getting started! Drama and Hurt/Comfort is on the way!  
> Enjoy, peeps!

_You either die a hero_

_or you live long enough to see yourself_

_become the villain.*_

* * *

 

In the end, it comes down to Captain America being full of shit and that's the one and only realization Tony will take away from their encounter in Siberia—bruises and broken bones not taken into account.

All the years and efforts spent to get his father's approval go to waste right then because Howard had hero-worshipped this hypocrite. Clearly, he hadn't been the best judge of character.

And yet, as Tony watches the Captain's retreating form, he realizes he has seen this before: A turned back. It's really just the story of his life.

He fights the emotional tiredness that weights him down—it goes beyond his physical existence, emerges from deep within, from the dark corners of his mind; he cannot give up. Many times before he has lost everything—and yes, there have been some poor life choices along the way and some might just have been made under the influence of alcohol—but at the end of the day, Tony is a fighter. Not a soldier, like Steve and not a king like T’Challa, but he is relentless in his pursuit of the future, he is its master.

He props himself up, the motion sending waves of pain through his torso. The dead suit encloses his sore body like a metal coffin. And as he loses sight of the two soldiers he knows, deep inside, this marks the end of an era and the beginning of change.

All empires are built to ultimately fall. All cities turn to dust eventually. The reign of the Avengers is over.

For the rogue ones, there will be no coming back. They've crossed the point of no return and Tony can only hope that neither of them will come to regret the part they've played in their petty little civil war.

Tony tries to get to his feet. The suit weights him down but he reaches for the discharged shield and uses it to pull himself up—like a crutch. He chuckles at that thought and is baffled at the same time, how things can be used for such different purposes. As a weapon or as a crutch; it's a shield though, Howard had built it to protect. It had been misused from the very start.

Never again.

It's a silent vow, one that remains unvoiced, but one that is made all the same as Tony steps out into the white Siberian winter world.

Snowflakes dance through the air, have nowhere to go, no place to be; but go on anyway, forced by gravity. Tony can relate then, he is the same.

The smartest thing to do would be to stay—stay in the bunker and wait for someone to come and pick him up. Although the suit is dead now, Friday would send out a signal of distress, leading someone to Tony. Hopefully.

Tony ventures out into the frozen landscape anyway. He has to move while he still can before the cold immobilizes him. He’s too afraid that if he waits— possibly an exercise in futility—that the bunker will become his concrete grave. He’d rather take his chances out there. It had worked before, it would probably work again.

He soon loses the suit. It’s a neat piece of engineering and innovation that shields him somewhat against the merciless Siberian cold, but it also makes every movement sheer torment and slows him down to the point where he feels like he’s walking in place. (It's out of power now, burned out. Dead. Tony is more than eager to let go of the reminder that Steve did this.)

The clothes he had worn when visiting the raft did little in keeping him warm—and it’s such a shame, really, because had he known earlier, he would have put on snow boots.

All the while though, no matter the weight, he holds on to the shield. He has nothing left to prove but still, grim determination keeps his fist firmly locked around the leather strap. This is his ego—the only thing left now—clinking to life like a drowning man. He has no intention of ever returning it to the man who has wielded it all the years. He actually has no idea what he’ll do with it once he’s out of this oversized freezer. He’ll figure it out along the way.

A lot he'll figure out along the way now.

The white winter world is vast and frustratingly _endless_ and out of bad habit, Tony keeps searching the horizon for a helicopter manned with Rhodey who will bring him home. Needless to say that Rhodey is a little occupied with battling his own demons right now and has neither the time nor the needed  _(walking)_ ability to come and save Tony's sorry ass.

 

By nightfall, Tony realizes his grave mistake. He not just has no idea where he's headed, he also lost track of where he came from. It's impossible to backtrack his steps now and return to the bunker - the snow looks the same everywhere. There are no landmarks to guide him (home).

It must have been the concussion that made him venture out in the first place, he thinks as he throws up. (He wipes the bile from his lips and stumbles forwards, moves on.)

The main problem is the cold though. Because with every minute creeping past and pretending to be half an eternity, he gets closer to freezing out here. First, he's most afraid of frostbite and losing a finger or two because without them he won't be able to fix Rhodes and he owns it to the one and only man who always stood with him; but that fear passes quickly. The numbing cold turns to searing pain. Tears cloud his vision, he is in so much pain.

He gets so desperate that he maps out this crazy-ass plan to built an igloo but then he ends up with a big heap of snow that he hollows out because the cold is not just killing him but also sucking away his energy. (He can't stay in there anyway, the confined space makes him claustrophobic.)

Being Tony Stark sucks big time. It comes with a lot of emotional baggage.

Cap might not delivered the final blow - decided to disable the ARC instead - but by the end of this night, he will have killed Tony all the same.

But Tony is not ready to be defeated yet. He has to make legs for Rhodes and a suit for the spiderling and like always, he has to at least  _try_ to make it all right again. (Nevermind chances are he'll fail anyway.)

When he finally sees the lights in the distance he's ready to believe. Believe that they've come for him to save his sorry ass. At this point, he is even ready to forgive and forget and start over, but  _please_ let it be Steve who returned to haul his freezing ass back home.

Tony musters up all his remaining strength and energy and starts stumbling toward the lights. He realizes too late that there are too many - it must be the concussion! - and that there is an eery formation to them, one of such intelligence and tactics, it could never be the hot-headed Avengers.

So midways towards his believed rescue he turns around and becomes the prey, hunted by the lights that had promised warmth and maybe - maybe the sweet, poisonous lie of love and friendship, a lie Tony has always fallen for. (God knows he would again.)

He can't see anything in the darkness of the night, anything except the many bright eyes that now follow him, no matter where he runs. Before he knows it, the ground tilts upwards and it gets even harder to get going and wouldn't it be  _so much_ easier to just lay down and let it all pass him, the light, the cold, the pain, the time? Easy, yes. But frustratingly weak too.

(Stark men are made of iron.)

The night growls deeply as if to disagree and it takes Tony a moment to realize that - no, he's not gone crazy - that sound is real and the ground is suddenly shaking! Before he has even the vaguest idea what's going on, the avalanche reaches him and swipes him off his feet. He rolls back down the way he's just come and spins around himself. Up and down, he doesn't know which is which anymore when the momentum finally dies down. He is rolled in on himself, the one thing that will give him time to think about the slow and gruesome death he will soon experience when he runs out of air, and there's snow everywhere else. He can only feel it, as he is plucked in utter darkness.

Panic rises in his chest and squeezes his neck. It suffocates him. He claws at the snow but he doesn't know which way to dig - where is up and where is down?! - and he screams at the top of his lungs and sobs and would gladly die right there if it would save him those terrible last few minutes of his anyway messed up life.

Amidst the panic, something new is born. (It doesn't have a name yet, but it's friends with anger and defeat.)

This is the perfect and probably last time to reflect on his life, on all the wrong choices - there were a lot of those, without a doubt - but all Tony can think of is air - because he will run out of it! - and space - no, not outer space! Just plain old space because he doesn't have any. And it strikes him, the certainty that Steve won't come.

Because Steve chose Barnes over Tony, a long, long time ago. He chose Barnes over Tony when he decided to keep secrets - just like Obidiah had kept secrets. And his Dad. And ... just like he had kept secrets when he had built Ultron...

Maybe he _is_ reflecting on his life.

Suddenly, the snow gives way and Tony can tell that instead of digging his way upwards he had been digging himself deeper into the snow. He turns towards the opening. A strong flash light's beam hits his face and he squints. Tony can’t really tell what’s going on up there, but he senses people around and eyes on him and then two sets of strong hands grip his upper arms and he is pulled out of his hole which suddenly seems like a nice little hiding place and he wouldn’t mind staying in there so much anymore.

Tony gets distracted by his left arm which seems a bit off – is that bone sticking out of the skin? Uh-huh. Positively. He has broken his ulna during his little roll-a-ball stunt. Or maybe it was the spoke. Now that he sees the injury the pain registers too, though adrenalin is still at work and keeping it down.

The people in front of him are faceless, nameless shapes as Tony is blinded by their flashlights and he squints but his brain cannot sort through everything, there is too much input and zero output as the strong hands drag him through the snow. His legs are limp, they refuse to support his weight.

His instincts tell Tony that he is in even greater danger than before as the men half carry half drag him towards a snow vehicle, but he is unable to act or to react. He's a lifeless puppet in their hands, barely able to stay conscious.

They don't talk and that's eerie and alarming in itself because it means they know exactly what they are doing. They don't need to confer, they came here with intentions.

Tony is pushed onto the vehicle's bed. He doesn't put up a fight, just rolls in on himself and shivers. He isn't as much cold as in pain.

The ground vibrates slightly as the engine roars to life. The wind rattles the truck tarpaulin. To Tony, it's all just one dull noise that soon carries him into darkness.

(His last thought is that he won't wake up again, and for all his ego and the fight he's put up right until then, he's strangely okay with it.)

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *Aaron Eckhart


End file.
